by Eileen Wilks
Normally there was a bench on the lookout. Friar and Jones had moved it to make room for their rite, parking it on the smooth sand a little ways down the southern end of the trail. Cullen was sitting on it, eyes closed, either meditating or asleep.
“Got a question for you.”
“I’m busy.”
“Yeah, I can tell. Squeeze me into your schedule. Those fireworks you set off . . . they’d have been visible from a long ways off. If Miriam was watching, would she have known what you did? Or would she have thought that was the node blowing up?”
His eyes opened. He tilted his head, thinking it over. “Good question. It’s not something she would’ve seen before, probably not something anyone she knows has ever seen. Nodes don’t go unstable often, and when they do, they don’t often leave witnesses. I’ve read a description in an old journal, but she probably hasn’t. She doesn’t share my interest in old documents relating to the Art. So . . . yeah, she could easily have assumed her plan had worked.”
“Then she thinks she got away with it. Good.” Miriam would head back to her condo—was probably there now—and Karonski would station however many officers were needed to keep her from leaving. Would they be armed with tranq weapons? Should she call him and . . . no, she told herself, though her fingers twitched with the urge. Karonski was in charge, and he was certainly capable of thinking of that himself.
When her phone chimed, she immediately thought it was Karonski. Like most assumptions based on coincidence, that was wrong.
“Glad to learn that you didn’t blow up,” a familiar voice said.
Lily stiffened. She touched the mute. “Get Rule. Fast,” she told Cullen—who shot off the bench as if he’d been fired from a cannon.
“Shocked you speechless, have I?” Robert Friar said. There was an odd, breathy quality to his voice.
She unmuted the call. “I was trying to think of a polite way to say that I wish you had.”
“You’d settle for such an impersonal death? We are different, you and I. I’d find it deeply unsatisfying if someone else killed you.”
“I’m not picky. You took some bullets. How badly are you hurt?” She heard Rule call out something to Barnaby.
“Not fatally, obviously, but you will be pleased to know that I’m in a great deal of pain. Why don’t I tell you why I called?”
“I am curious about that. Among other things. You calling from a disposable?”
“Of course.”
Rule arrived at a run. Cullen was right behind him. She made a hushing gesture and pointed at the phone. In this form Rule couldn’t prick his ears, but he looked like he wanted to. She didn’t put it on speaker; no need on Rule’s behalf, and the microphone might pick up sounds she didn’t want Friar to hear.
“I wish to make a deal,” Friar said.
She snorted. “Yeah, that’ll happen.” Rule had gone on high alert the moment he heard Friar’s voice. He leaned close. Cullen crowded up to Lily’s other side, making sure he didn’t miss anything, either.
“You need me and I, unfortunately, need you. I’m too badly injured to save the world on my own tonight. I propose to put myself in your hands, entirely at your mercy, so we can do that together.”
“Saving the world being so high on your priority list.”
“I was attacked.” His voice was lower now. Rougher, with real emotion leaking through. It sounded like fury. “Nearly killed, although I’m quite difficult to kill these days. Armand was killed. The knife was taken from me and will be used by one who will place this world forever beyond the dominion of my mistress by destroying it. Yes, saving the world is high on my priority list tonight. Revenge is near the top as well.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had smoothed out. “I’m assuming you’re aware that I had an artifact—a knife—and that someone took it from me. I can find it.”
She met Rule’s eyes. So far, Friar seemed to be telling the truth. “Can you, now?”
“Because of the previous ritual, I’m linked to it. You want to find that knife, Lily. I will lead you to it. In exchange, you will refrain from harming or imprisoning me. Together we will take it from the person who now holds it, thus saving the world.”
“You trust me to keep my word?”
He chuckled. It turned into a coughing fit, which continued painfully for a moment. “Ah, that hurt,” he said at last. “My lung hasn’t healed yet. No, I don’t trust you. You and I are different, but not in that way. You’re a practical soul. You’ll kill me if you can, but not until you’ve gotten what you need from me. I will, however, trust the word of Rule Turner. He would also like to kill me, but if he gives his word, he’ll keep it. Is he listening, by the way?”
Lily looked at Rule. Should we admit that? He raised his brows. Up to you.
“Why should we believe you?” she asked, tacitly agreeing that Rule was with her. “Seeing as how your word isn’t worth used toilet paper.”
“I could, of course, be lying in order to lead you into a trap, but it’s unnecessary. If I’m telling the truth, I’ll be taking you to someone who’s channeling the power of a god. Someone who will certainly try to kill you, and may succeed. It’s quite amusing, really. By telling the truth, I may lead you to your deaths—and you want me to do that.” He certainly sounded amused, in a breathless way. A bullet to the lung? “I will, however, do my poor best to keep you alive until the knife is retrieved. I can’t do it myself, not in time.”
“What’s this business about channeling the power of a god?”
“What do you know about the knife?”
She wasn’t about to hand him everything, but she could prime the pump by telling him what he already knew or could guess. “It’s an ancient sidhe artifact you got from Benessarai. Lots of magic and what the sidhe call arguai. When you killed Debrett with it, it sucked up every memory of the man.”
“Almost every memory,” he corrected her. “Choosing him for the first sacrifice was a mistake. A natural one—who would have thought you’d have any memory of a man you never met?”
“What makes you think I do?”
“Come now, Lily. Just because I can’t eavesdrop on you doesn’t mean I can’t listen elsewhere, and cops are a talkative bunch.”
And with his magically powered luck, it would have been easy to Listen to the right person at the right time. “Why did you pick Debrett?”
“Why do you think?” There was a strong flavor of smirk in that statement. “But I shouldn’t have allowed my desire to make you suffer bias my choice. Not that I had any way of knowing you would be somehow protected, and I confess I do not understand that. Still, it was a mistake. Whatever memory you retained of Debrett created an imperfection, a tiny knot, that allowed someone else to hitch a ride on the power generated by the ritual.”
“Someone else?”
“A sidhe god. The one to whom the knife is linked.”
Sam hadn’t said anything about the knife being tied to a god. He had indicated the sidhe probably weren’t telling him everything, though. He’d called the information they gave him accurate but probably incomplete. “That’s bad news for you, since you want it for the Big B.”
“Bad news for all of us, since the god’s resurrection will destroy our world.”
“His resurrection.”
“Dyffaya áv Eni is the sidhe god of chaos, compulsion, and madness. Or he was . . . either present or past tense applies, since his current state is ambiguous. The sidhe killed him over three thousand years ago, you see. But life and death are not the same for gods as for mortals, and they vary even among the gods. If one who was born a mortal assumes a godhead, it is possible to kill the god’s body. Difficult, but possible. The sidhe achieved that much, but the individual who occupied the godhead retreated into it. Godheads may fade or change over the centuries, but they cannot be destroyed. Dyffaya áv Eni . . . that’s a call-na
me, of course. It means Beautiful Madness. Dyffaya still exists, but not in a manner that would make sense to you and I. He wants more than that limited existence. He wants to walk in the world again.”
“I’m sensing a contradiction. He wants to walk in the world, so he’ll destroy it.”
“It wouldn’t be destroyed instantly. It would degrade. Using the knife creates a certain instability. Perhaps your sorcerer is aware of this? I used it in a way that minimized the instability. My mistress wants to save this world and all who live here, not destroy it. Dyffaya won’t be so careful. The—” He stopped with a gasp and wheezed painfully for a moment. “I will be glad when that bullet finally works its way out. Dyffaya will enjoy himself here—the chaos of a disintegrating realm will feed him. Before the realm dissolves completely, he’ll leave. He has enemies in the sidhe realms he will wish to rebuke. You have, I believe, heard of the Queens.”
“Yes.” She exchanged another look with Rule. What Friar said fit with what Sam had told them. Did that mean it was true? Some of it, she thought, but how much and which parts?
“Have I persuaded you, Lily?” Her name sounded greasy and overly intimate in his mouth. “You and your inhuman lover? I think you can’t afford to dismiss me. Am I right? Shall we make a deal?”
She saw Rule’s opinion in his scowl. He shook his head to make sure she understood. For herself . . . Friar was right, damn him. She couldn’t afford to dismiss him. “I need to think about this.”
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes. Don’t delay, Lily. We haven’t much time. I arranged the second sacrifice for tonight for a reason. Whoever holds the knife now will use it tonight.”
“You can’t trust him,” Rule said the instant she disconnected.
“I don’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t use him.” That sounded way too close to what Friar had said. She hated the idea that she and he were alike in any way. “It fits. Everything he said fits. He may be lying about some of it, but we know the knife is bad news. We know we need to stop whoever has it from using it. And we don’t have a clue how to do that, how to find the blasted thing.”
“Dark moon,” Cullen said.
“What are you talking about?” Rule snapped.
He shrugged. “That’s the obvious reason for the rite to take place tonight. It’s the dark of the moon. If I were summoning a god of madness, that’s when I’d do it.”
Lily felt she had to point something out. “Friar wasn’t summoning a crazy dead god, though. He was trying to make enough of a rip in reality to bring her in.”
“Magically speaking, dark moon means two things—the period when the moon isn’t visible, which lasts from one-and-a-half to three-and-a-half days, and the distinct moment when the moon and sun are in conjunction. We haven’t hit that moment yet, so Friar must have opted for the broader period, when reality thins out.”
“Which doesn’t make anything he said true,” Rule said evenly. “We don’t even know for sure that someone stole the knife. He may be luring us to him so he can use it on one of us.”
Lily opened her mouth to argue . . . and closed it again. He was right. He was right, and she’d missed that possibility entirely. They’d assumed that because the knife was missing, the shooter—Miriam—had taken it. But Friar was missing, too. He’d been hurt, sure, but he’d gotten away. What if he’d held on to the knife?
Her mind clicked through the possibilities that thought opened up . . . and came up with the same answer. “If he’s got the knife and is luring us to him, we still have to go. It doesn’t matter who has the knife. We can’t let them use it.”
“I could go alone.”
“If you’re serious—which is hard to believe—then remember that Friar called me, not you. Do you think he’d agree to a deal that left me free to arrest him or shoot him or whatever? He’ll want me under his eye.”
“Because he wants you dead.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure he’d honor any deal he made with you and let you just walk away with the knife.”
“The knife we aren’t supposed to come in range of, you mean?”
She just looked at him. He wasn’t really trying to talk her out of this. He knew the stakes . . . the ones she was trying hard not to think about. Phrases like “the fabric of the realm” and “destroy the world” were likely to set loose the gibbering fool at the back of her brain if she let her attention pause there. Finally she said, “You make the deal when he calls. You’re good at that sort of thing.” She held out her phone.
After a long moment, Rule sighed and accepted both the phone and the necessity. “All right, but you seem to be pretty good at closing a deal yourself.”
THIRTY-SIX
LILY was glad she’d handed the phone to Rule. It would never have occurred to her to have Friar swear by his mistress’s name. One of her names, anyway.
The deal consisted of three terms that applied to both sides and two just for Friar. First term: If any of them broke their word, the deal was off. Second term: The deal lasted until the knife was recovered and placed in the custody of a saint—a stipulation that startled Friar. Either he didn’t know about Hardy, or he faked surprise really well. Third term: Everyone agreed not to harm or cause harm to the other side. Harm included physical harm, magical assault, arrest, drugging and other forms of incapacitation, imprisonment, and duress. In addition, Friar would allow them to search him, and he would not engage in any illegal actions except with Lily’s express consent. “You don’t jaywalk unless I say it’s okay,” she told him.
That had made him wheeze with what might have been amusement. “I don’t walk at all at the moment.”
Friar swore to abide by those terms, swore using a name Lily didn’t know. Rule did, though. Then Friar gave them an address and Rule disconnected.
Lily said, “He never mentioned the ‘compel, persuade, corrupt’ deal.”
“I noticed that. Nor did he say that the knife is named. Either he doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand the significance, or he’s hoping to use his knowledge in some way.” Rule put his fingers in his mouth and let out two loud, piercing whistles. That was the recall. Lupi could hear such a whistle for miles.
They started back to the lookout. “Do you think swearing by one of her names will really make Friar hold to the deal?”
“It may. He’s tied to her strongly now, and she doesn’t forswear herself.”
That startled Lily. “That’s oddly virtuous of her.”
Cullen, a few paces ahead, said, “Words shape magic, create a flow. Those with a great deal of power experience repercussions if they break their sworn word. She might be really unhappy with him if he broke a vow made in her name.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean he won’t, but he’ll avoid it if he can.”
“If he does,” Rule said, his voice dropping into something close to a growl, “I’ll no longer be bound by my word. Apparently he can now survive and heal bullet wounds. He wouldn’t survive what I would do if my word didn’t hold me back.”
How desperate did Friar have to be to place himself in their hands? Unless, of course, he had no intention of doing that. They might show up at the address he’d given them and have it blow up. She reminded herself to keep in mind that Friar might still have the knife, but she didn’t believe it. Her gut said he was genuinely, deeply pissed about having the knife stolen. “If he can go out-of-phase whenever he wants, he’s going to be hard to sink your teeth into.”
“I’d have to be quick, wouldn’t I?” He said that softly, maybe because there were cops around them now. Maybe because he was warning his wolf not to linger over the kill.
“T.J.,” she said as he turned to look at them, “I’ve got to go. Woo-woo stuff.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You and Turner taking all your sniffers with you?”
“I am, yes,” Rule answered without stopping.
As they reached the trail
, Cullen pulled ahead and Rule dropped behind. No room to go abreast. Together all three of them shifted into an easy lope. Lily couldn’t take the trail fast, not at night . . . but she wanted to. She wanted to race as fast as she could. She felt twitchy, as if she’d drunk way too much coffee.
Nerves. Jitters. This wasn’t like her. Normally at this point in an operation she’d be tense but focused—on what she was doing, what her next step needed to be. She had the tense part down. It was focus she lacked. She couldn’t seem to get her mind to pay attention. “If Friar doesn’t have the knife, he means to use us to get it back. Once we get it away from Miriam, he’ll try to take it.”
“I’m still trying to work out how we’ll get it away from Miriam.”
“There is that.” Maybe that’s why she was so jumpy. They didn’t have a plan. Showing up was necessary, but it wasn’t a plan. Only she couldn’t think of where to start.
They hit the first sharp bend. Scott and Mike joined them. Rule told Scott to have the rest of the men meet them at the cars.
From a few feet ahead of them, Cullen said, “Polyester.”
“What?”
“The contagion couldn’t pass through inorganics, and it came from the knife, so maybe the knife has trouble working through inorganics. We need polyester.”
“I’ve got latex gloves.”
“That’s a start. We need more.”
Lily’s phone started on the opening bars of the polka tune she used for Karonski. She pulled it from her pocket just as Barnaby joined them at the rear. “Yes?” Her heart kicked once and started pounding, which made no sense. She could run at this pace a lot longer without her heartbeat going crazy.
“Fairchild’s not at her condo. I’ve got an APB out. Can you get over here? I’d like you to check the place out with your magical fingers. Maybe Rule could sniff around, too.”
“Can’t. I’m headed off on . . . urgent Unit business.”
He was silent a moment. “I see. Advise me when you can.”
“Will do.” She disconnected, feeling vaguely dizzy.